It’s difficult to hold onto our spiritual truths in the midst of the anxious clutter of our thoughts. Even if you were to become a master meditator, being truly present would still never become automatic. There’s no way around it - living from a deeper, more balanced, more spiritually grounded place is all a matter of practice.
And though it might not become easy any time soon, it can quickly become easier.
In that spirit, here’s a simple practice that will help you more easily rebalance yourself, and access your deeper spiritual grounding. Along with the powerful physical effect of resetting your nervous system, it can drop you into a fuller presence with yourself, and into a clearer alignment with the Divine. And as with any practice, the more you practice it - and practice it and practice it - the more you’ll feel the effects, and the easier it’ll get.
Practice: Mental-Emotional Release
We all get hooked. We have thoughts and feelings that grab hold of us and don’t let go. The bumper sticker that says “don’t believe everything you think” offers wise advice. We mistakenly think our thoughts are true interpretations of outer reality. They’re actually interpretations that get filtered by our biases and the deeper emotions that activate them.
This Release Practice helps us pin down the feelings that spin off into anxious thoughts. As we name the feeling underlying the thought, and then surrender it, the power of the thought recedes into heart-centered awareness and clarity.
Here are the steps of an RRR process:
Clearly identify the thought or emotion that has hooked you.
Slow your breathing, move you attention into your heart space, and RECOGNIZE the deeper feeling that’s driving the experience. Most feelings are rooted in one of three emotions: mad, sad, or scared.
Hold the feeling without resisting it, fearing it, or condemning it. Drop all judgments about it.
Appreciate and honor the feeling. In this move you RESPECT the feeling. Look with tenderness upon it in the same way you might look upon a child who is suffering.
As you compassionately hold the feeling, intentionally surrender it to your Higher Power. This is the RELEASE step. As you do so, look for the energy in the feeling to lessen or disappear. Notice the calm and lightness that comes after the feeling dissipates. Feel gratitude for this spaciousness.
The next time your thoughts or emotions get hooked, go back and repeat this RECOGNIZE - RESPECT - RELEASE awareness process.
The benefits of the Mental-Emotional Release Practice: By untangling our thoughts and feelings, we both get to the root of the problem and take responsibility for our thoughts and feelings. This shifts us from thinking the problem is outside us, to an experience of problems shrinking when we hold them from a state of presence.
So, rather than getting hooked on passing thoughts and feelings, what if we got hooked on practicing the Presence we’re longing for?
PS: The Enneagram is a great tool to partner with this Mental-Emotional Release practice. I have a number of Enneagram videos to help you deepen your awareness of your Enneagram Type and it’s sticky patterns.